Using close reading methodologies, analyze a work (literature, film, or other finite work) produced by an
Indigenous woman or gender-diverse person in relation to the core question of our course: Indigenous women
and power.
Use your own voice and external academic sources, if possible by Indigenous women or non-binary authors, to
further explore and contextualize key questions that arise from your reading of the chosen work.
Structure your essay by developing two or three core points of analysis. Support your argument with relevant
quotations from the work analysed and from external sources.
Include references (MLA or Chigago style) and a bibliography.
STEPS TO FOLLOW
1) Perform a close reading/viewing.
Read or listen carefully the work you have chosen. Take note of your thoughts and observations along the way.
This inquiry will form the basis of your analysis.
- See Hannay Skrynsky’s lecture on close reading (week 7).
- See also Natalia Möller’s lecture on film analysis (week 10).
2) Produce a draft outline to organize your material and your ideas.
Review the notes from your close reading and viewing. Then jot down your ideas on the questions below. Try
to work spontaneously, using your own words.
• What work will you analyze in relation to Indigenous women and power? What did a close reading of that
work bring to light? Towards which lines of questioning are you orienting your thoughts? How is power
conceived, discussed, mobilized, enacted, countered, fostered, and imagined by and in relation to Indigenous
women, two-spirit and gender-diverse people?
• What are the two or three core points you are intending to develop in your analysis? How are you planning to
organize your ideas?
• What specific elements of the work’s historical, political, and cultural context will you be discussing? How?
What external sources will you be using to enhance your argument? What are your quotations? Why is
significant about them in relation to your analysis?
Continue working with your answers to find out how you will develop your argument. This can be in note form.
3) Write your essay
As you write your essay remember that:
This course presents an interdisciplinary examination of Indigenous women and power through the lens of
Indigenous women scholars, writers, filmmakers, artists, and activists.
Close reading methodologies in the field of Indigenous studies are mobilized in order to develop a grounded
and accurate understanding of how power is conceived, discussed, mobilized, countered, fostered, and
imagined by and in relation to Indigenous women.
The focus of our analysis remains the critical and creative works themselves.
Three lines of approach frame our examinations: - the power discussed in creative expressions;
- the creative expressions as powerful in themselves; and
- the creative processes as requiring and generating power in relation to sovereignty and decolonization.
The final essay should focus on the first line of approach, but can take into account the other two as well.
The final essay corresponds to the last learning objective, that is:
• Using close reading methodologies interpret and analyze specific creative works in relation to one another
and to the historical, political, and cultural contexts in which they are created and circulated.
Sample Solution